Onshore wind energy has become cheaper than electricity from any other source in the UK for the first time, in what could be a landmark moment for renewable energy in Britain.

Yet the Government has been accused of scuppering Britain’s best chance of meeting the country’s ambitious environmental targets through its continued resistance to onshore turbines, despite growing evidence that they are the most affordable option.

However, new figures show they not only produce cheaper energy than coal, oil or gas power stations, but also remain far cheaper than offshore turbines, which the Government is championing.

Economists like to use a concept called the
‘levelised cost of energy’. It’s simple in theory but hard in practice, because
fossil fuel and renewable energy technologies are like chalk and
cheese.

While fossil fuel energy requires continual
costly inputs – like gas or coal – once you’ve paid for and installed a solar
panel or a wind turbine producing the energy is (almost) free. This is why
renewables are fundamentally disrupting current markets, where the prices of
products like energy are determined by production costs.

This is a watershed moment in a series of
long-term trends: the cost of fossil fuels changing unpredictably, nuclear
getting more expensive, and renewables getting ever cheaper. Adding in the very
real costs to our health and the environment makes clean energy even more
economic in comparison (see this week’s chart).

Do subsidies still make
sense?

With wind now the cheapest source of energy, the
government’s drive to cut its financial support may seem to make
sense.

Analysis by Politico revealed that meetings
between the European Commission and lobby groups on energy dwarfed
all other sectors with 500 meetings since December 2014 (a lobbying
visualisation can be viewed here).
The number of meetings is especially high due to the looming COP21 in Paris. In
the UK analysis
from the Guardian earlier this year showed the extent of Shell and BP’s
lobbying power compared to renewable energy companies.